1st Edition
Production Organizations in Japanese Economic Development
In this important new book, the authors explore how production was organized in the context of the economic development of modern Japan.
Production organizations are taken to mean the long-term relationships which economic agents create for production, based on employment contracts or long-term transactions. This includes hierarchical organizations such as factories and corporations, but also flexible arangements such as subcontracting.
Modern Japanese economic development is characterized by the co-evolution of these two types of production organizations, while American economic development in the modern period is characterized by the development of a mass production system based on large hierarchical organizations. The question is raised as to why and how a certain type of organization proliferated in a certain industry in a certain period, and what the role of that organization was in coordinating production and giving incentives to the economic agents involved. The result is a comparative institutional analysis of the organizational foundations of Japanese economic development in the modern period.
1. Introduction, Tetsuji Okazaki and Masaki Nakabayashi, 2. Transition from putting-out system to factory system, Tomoko Hashino, 3. Formation of the labor market, Ryo Kambayashi, 4. Emergence of modern corporate organization, Naofumi Nakamura, 5. Employment of professional managers: Determinants and implications, Tetsuji Okazaki , 6. New function of putting-out system, Masaki Nakabayashi, 7. Reproduction of flexible production organization, Masayuki Tanimoto, 8. Formation of subcontracting system, Kazuaki Kagami
Biography
Tetsuji Okazaki is at the University of Tokyo
"This is a valuable and timely volume on an important aspect of Japanese economic history that has received relatively little attention in the literature. ... All in all, this is a very solid contribution that showcases some of the best works of a new generation of Japanese economic historians whose works are informed by economic theory and careful archival research. It contributes to fill a gap in the existing literature on Japanese economic history, which has not given adequate attention to the role of small-scale and craft-based industry in Japanese modernization." -- Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol 58, number 3., Debin Ma, London School of Economics
